Charles Krauthammer blamed former president Obama for the Democrats’ “identity crisis,” while he also said that they need a message or at least an ideological center:

The fact that the most popular politician, particularly among Democrats, is Bernie Sanders, who’ll be 78 in 2020, gives you an idea of the extent of the devastation Obama has left behind in the Democratic party. In his eight years he did okay in ‘08 and ’12, but they have lost, as you enumerated before, the House, the Senate, the presidency, two-thirds of the governorships, two-thirds of the statehouses. He has torched their entire minor-league system. AAA, AA, single-A — there’s nothing left, and that’s why the leadership is in their 70s. It’s the old progressive, Bernie Sanders, vacationing-in-the-Soviet-Union hard Left, which energizes a lot of students. I don’t think it’s going to carry the party anywhere. Ask yourself, what do they stand for? Higher minimum wage? Fine, but that’s not a program. I think what they have lost is kind of an ideological center. Remember, the real problem in the Clinton campaign was: What was her message? What does she believe? She had to farm it out to 20 people, and nobody had an answer. I don’t know what the party stands for other than it’s right now anti-Trump and it will thrive on that, but beyond that, there’s nothing on the positive side other than the hard Left, and that’s got no appeal beyond these university towns and some cities.